Kimber said before people can come back to worship, more accessible testing sites are needed in areas like Newhallville and West Rock.

“…where car ownership is the lowest, families have the
farthest to travel for testing,” said Kimber.

Those are areas Mayor Justin Elicker said they’re looking into. There are now five sites in New Haven: CVS at the former Gateway Community College, Yale New Haven Health on Longwarf, Fair Haven Health, a walkup site at Chapel and Day Streets, and Cornell Scott Hill Health Center on Dixwell Avenue.

Elicker said anyone in New Haven with or without symptoms can get tested. It is at no cost and no doctor’s note is needed. If so, the New Haven Health Department can assist with a letter and should be contacted if there’s a request for payment.

"We’ll start to see a lot more asymptomatic testing, so that many residents are getting tested. That’s really important to us beating the virus," said Elicker.

With those sites up and running, Elicker said his team continues to monitor hot spots in neighborhoods across the city, most often in communities of color.

“City Hall is in particular focused on neighborhoods that
are of need, that are hotspots for COVID-19. And we will continue to add new
sites that are focused on those hotspots,” said Elicker. “We’re thinking of a
number of different options for testing, one is sites that are stationary for a
long time and another is mobile sites so that we can move around and make sure
we’re flexible.”

“We realize it does not take a building to worship and praise God,” said Varick’s Pastor Kelcy G. L. Steele. "There’s still a danger to people’s health by assembling."

He said they won’t go back inside their building for quite some time. But he’s got an inside look at reopening as a member of the governor’s Faith-Based Advisory Council.

“It’s dangerous to open up the churches if you don’t give the
churches proper guidelines that’s been vetted by medical professionals,” said
Steele. “So we’re really looking at that across our faith communities, how’s
this going to look when we do go back into the building.”

He said that guidance will include cleaning between services, temperature checks and hand sanitizing stations for the reopening when the time is right.

“We’re not going to jeopardize people’s health just to bring
them back and sit in pews.”